by Jennifer Doyle
The New York Times

GOA, India — When the Indian women’s national team takes the field against Sri Lanka on Friday in the South Asian Games, it will be its first soccer match in two years.

India’s national soccer association had failed to schedule a friendly match for its women’s team since October 2007. And last June, FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, sent a rebuke to the All India Football Federation and, with no matches to evaluate, removed the Indian team from its world rankings.

The delisting seemed to move Indian soccer officials to action.

Union Football League Playoff Final this Sunday, June 14th.
Schedule and Map and on league website:

Union Football League Playoff Semi Finals this Sunday, June 7th.
Schedule and Map and on league website:

Union Football League Playoff Quarter Finals start this Sunday, May 31st.
Schedule and Map below, and on league website:

Antonio Puleo, One For Me, One For You

Cherry and Martin presents Antonio Adriano Puleo’s exhibition I Am a Bird Now, featuring ecstatic murals, paintings and sculpture that possess a bold fusion of natural history and modern abstraction. This will be the first solo exhibition at the gallery’s new location at 2712 S. La Cienega Blvd.

Antonio Adriano Puleo’s pictorial exploration is a twenty-first century hybrid of art history, including the painterly experimentations of modern abstraction as well as the illustrations of the 19th century American naturalist John James Audubon and Medieval illumination. The third in a series of solo shows by Puleo, I Am a Bird Now, follows up on two previous exhibitions, To This World I Must Give In (2005) and Birds and Beasts (2007). Whereas Puleo’s previous exhibitions furthered a pictorial investigation of the tensions between opposing forces (Birds and Beasts) and the individual’s place amongst these tensions (To This World I Must Give In), Puleo’s new body of work explores the manipulation of these tensions through symmetry, pattern and the hermeticism of alchemy. Inherent in Puleo’s work is the translucent dimension of ecstasy, the idea that revelation can be had through the polarities of perfect geometrical proportions, radiant color and a visceral connection to the material world.

Central to the exhibition and the artist’s concerns are two wall installations, Follow The Light (2009) and They Know Why They’re There (2009). Painting becomes architecture as vibrant bands of color seamlessly emerge from strategically placed, intimate canvases. These small paintings, whose compositions magnify exponentially onto the gallery walls, chart the implicit energy of expansion and contraction.

Rudo y Cursi. This special evening is part of Cinema Tuesdays, a new weekly series curated by Flux celebrating innovative film at The Montalbán special events theatre in Hollywood.

Tuesday May 5th, 2009
7pm — Acamonchi art show; Clorofila (Nortec Collective)
8pm — Screening plus Q&A with director Carlos Cuarón

by Julie Bosman

The scruffy players in brick-red jerseys and secondhand shoes hailed from Haiti, Togo, Mexico, Honduras and Harlem. The fresh-faced team in black had neatly trimmed hair, new gear and degrees from Carnegie Mellon, Syracuse, Pace and universities in China and Australia.

Most of the players in black work together at the Royal Bank of Canada, bonded by the financial cloud hanging over their industry. The reds, too, are united by financial circumstance, sharing a temporary address, 1 Wards Island: a homeless shelter.

They faced off the other night at Chelsea Piers, perhaps Manhattan’s premier soccer spot for young professionals, and this spring also the base for the newest team in Street Soccer USA, a 16-city network of homeless players that started in 2005 in Charlotte, N.C., and is under the umbrella of Help USA, a national homeless services provider.

The idea behind homeless soccer is something like this: Take a group of poor people, disconnected from the regular rhythms of life, lacking both physical exercise and much to look forward to. Add soccer.

In Ann Arbor, Mich., and Austin, Tex., Minneapolis, St. Louis and Washington, the program has been credited with helping players pull themselves out of homelessness. There is even a Homeless World Cup. This year’s, the seventh, is scheduled for September in Milan.

“When I’m out there, I feel like I can’t do any wrong,” said Dexter Burnett, 47, who played soccer in his native Jamaica, where his speed earned him the nickname Pepper. He was laid off last fall from a job as a medical assistant. “It allows me not to think about my situation so much and just relax and enjoy the moment.”

The league is the brainchild of Lawrence Cann, 31, once a nationally ranked soccer player at Davidson College, who moved in the fall from Charlotte to New York, with one of the nation’s largest homeless populations, estimated at 35,000, but no established homeless soccer team.

With the help of a few volunteers, Mr. Cann cleared out a dusty gymnasium that had previously been used for storage at the shelter on Wards Island, a patch of land in the East River. He recruited a few reluctant players, promising they would not be punished for missing the standard 10 p.m. shelter curfew.

At an early practice on a rainy night in March, a couple of the 15 people standing expectantly in a circle had evidently been drinking. Most spoke little English. And they did not even know one another’s names.

“Hey, you,” one player called out before kicking a clumsy pass that landed far from its target.

Taking note, Mr. Cann imported a drill familiar to early practices of soccer teams everywhere: Before making a pass, the kicker had to call out the name of the receiver. He gave instructions in English and Spanish. He declared that anybody who showed up drunk or high would not participate that night (but could return the next week). And between running, passing and shooting, players are expected to talk to the coach about their goals outside soccer, their job searches and their state of mind.

Of the 30 people who have turned out for a practice, only six have not returned a second time.

“You need something to occupy your time around here,” said Woods Matthews, 45, a regular whose long braid swings when he plays. “That’s why people get so mad around the shelter. We don’t get any exercise, we’re all cooped up, and then people get in fights.”

As the players smoothed their ragged edges, Mr. Cann began to look for opponents.

Chelsea Piers, with its state-of-the-art facilities, is among the city’s most expensive places to play — $2,450 per team for 10 games — and normally has a waiting list of more than 25 teams. But the bad economy led a lot of corporate-sponsored teams to drop out. Mr. Cann raised the entry fee, Nike donated equipment, and Chelsea Piers provided matching jerseys, as it does for all the teams that play there.

Just getting to the field is a 70-minute trek: the M35 bus to Harlem, a downtown train, then a half-mile walk to the West Side Highway.

The homeless players lost their debut game, 14-4, playing without a single substitute. The next week, they faced a team from Bloomberg, the financial information company, whose players were politely intrigued.

“I guess I figure being homeless, they’ll play pretty aggressively,” predicted Louis Brun, 22.

Street Soccer NY lost again, 11-5. As the teams headed to the locker room, Mr. Burnett chatted up an opponent, asking if Bloomberg was hiring.

“If these guys can get out there, feel comfortable talking to new people, and not get frustrated, then it’s really going to help them integrate,” Mr. Cann said. “Then eventually they’ll keep jobs and not get kicked out of their apartments.”

He is already seeing progress: One player left the shelter and returned to his family. Another, Jarvis Strose, who had refused to meet with caseworkers and regularly missed curfew over two years of homelessness, arrived promptly at practice every week. A caseworker told Mr. Cann that a third man, who had developed a nervous disorder after being beaten in prison, was beginning to recover from his trauma because of the exercise.

On Tuesday, Street Soccer NY met the team made up mostly of Royal Bank of Canada workers, called the Gunners.

Chris Lodgson, 25, who plays center back on the homeless team, came straight from his new job at the cafe at Bloomingdale’s; he was planning to move from the shelter to an apartment in Washington Heights. He will continue to play with Street Soccer, which he said has been instrumental in his getting back on his feet.

“I don’t want to say it’s a return to being normal, but it makes me feel like myself again,” he said. “Two weeks ago, that was, like, the first time in a while that I forgot. I forgot where I was and what was going on.”

The red team took an early lead, passing fluidly, players calling one another by name. Players from the adjacent field wandered over to watch.

“Is that the homeless team?” asked one. “Wow,” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “They’re good.”

Mr. Strose scored his fourth goal of the game, panting with exhaustion as he ran off the field. When Mr. Matthews, sent in to substitute, kicked for a goal but missed the ball entirely, his teammates shouted encouragement.

“When we started, they didn’t know how to play,” Mr. Cann said. “They didn’t know how to pass. They didn’t trust each other.”

Final score: Homeless 10, Bankers 4.

Mr. Cann, surrounded by celebrating players, looked relieved. “We really needed a win,” he said.

Still clapping, he called out to his team, “Shake hands!”

Thanks Ryan

Photograph by Michael Wells

Municipal de Fútbol is distributed by D.A.P.

UFL All-Star Weekend
Sunday, March 29th, 5 till 9pm

Parkside FC will be representing on the UFL All-Star team with 3 of our players (Moises Francia #8, Johnathon Law #10, Ricardo Martinez #21) and our keeper, Fernando Dimas #1. Come watch as top talent from the Union Football League takes on Hollywood United FC.

5pm — Atletico 1315 vs Telemundo
7pm — UFL All-Stars vs Hollywood United FC
9pm — Awards and Certificates

Fullerene, buckyballs, nanotubes…

That’s right, we handed the LAPD their first DEFEAT of their season — a very physical game. #10 Law went to work quickly in the first half, striking with his left while streaking left across the goal with an amazing shot into the right side. LAPD equalized later in the half when our keeper #1 Dimas came out to challenge, missing the striker, who was left with a wide open goal. Early in the second half #10 Law made a remarkable flick to #4 Santander who volleyed the ball into the upper right corner. We had several additional opportunities to score, but each time our shot went wide or just over the cross bar. The LAPD controlled the possession, of the second half. Ironically, for all their “physical” play, we went down a man, #2 Puleo, who made a clean tackle on ball, but was given a second yellow and show the red. With just 10, Parkside FC went defensive, with most the play in our half, but with only a few threatening shots on goal from the LAPD.

View the rest of the season schedule and league table here.

New league, new kit: black/white shirt, black/white shorts, black/white socks.

adidas is the official equipment sponsor of Parkside FC and the Union Football League.

Another exciting Sunday at the Union Football League!

We went up 4 to 0 in the first half, but Dinamo came back early in the second with spirit and scored 2 quick goals. After being hacked in the box 3-4 previous times, #4 Geronimo got a kick from the dot and took us up 5 to 2. Later, #21 Martinez weaved his way through 2-3 defenders in the box and put a beautiful shot into the upper left corner. That sealed the game, Dinamo made several inspired runs up the center and wings but couldn’t penetrate for any additional goals.

View the rest of the season schedule here.

After a 7 — 0 loss to Nikys last Sunday (and a practice the next day) Parkside FC came out against South LA 1031 and scored 4 in the first 20 minutes of play. We expected at most a draw against the club from South Central, but came out with our first win of the season at the Union Football League. We expect to hit our stride by game 5.

View the rest of the season schedule here.

Season opening matches for the Union Football League this Sunday, February 8th! All played at 7th and Union (entrance on Valencia St and Ingraham St):

“As a part of the ART LA Saturday Programming series, I’ll be reading from Municipal de Fútbol on 1/24 at 1pm on a panel with my collaborators — at the Ruskin Theater, which is located across the street from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica.”
— Jennifer Doyle

A slide show, reading and panel discussion exploring the different sides of Municipal de Fútbol: photography, writing, art, and design will take place. Municipal de Fútbol celebrates what is arguably Los Angeles’s largest subculture, the world of those playing in the myriad of soccer leagues across the city, far below the radar of sports media. A project initiated by designer Jonathan Maghen, Municipal de Fútbol was inspired by the pick-up and amateur soccer games played in the densest parts of east and south Los Angeles. Centered on Michael Wells’ photographs of weekend and night games played on dusty fields and in urban parks across the city, Municipal de Fútbol explores the possibilities of “Fútbol Angelino”. Jennifer Doyle will present contributions to the project, and talk about the collaboration of design, photography and critic and this inspired marriage of art and sport.

“One of his (Günther Netzer) most fabled moments on the pitch arrived in the final for the 1973 German Cup. After a season of public power struggles with his manager, he announced a move to Real Madrid a week before this final game against Koln. The manager had him start the match on the bench. I am not sure I understand the details, but I think the manager tried to sub him in during the first half, and Netzer refused to go on the field. And then, during the second half, he shed his jacket, and said “I will go on now” and scored the winning goal. You can see that goal here, starting at about 2 minutes.”
— Jennifer

Registration for Union Football League begins Monday, December 29th, 2008!
$1600 for a roster of up to 20. $40 for each additional player (Maximum of 26 per roster). This includes all games, referee fees, registration, ID cards and more! Games are on Sundays at 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm — all played at 7th and Union. If your team is interested, please contact the league Director for details:

George Best Interview, Part 1 of 4.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Thanks Michael

Our sides were evenly matched and EPFC played very fair. Both sides had many opportunities to score on breaks up the wings with crosses into the center, neither converted. Our first goal came off a free kick by Johnathon Law #10, the keeper never had a chance. We struggled in the second half to put another in the net after several 1 on 1 breakaways, their defenders managed to challenge at the last minute and a few shots were either deflected by the keeper or went wide. We sealed the game with a great sequence of passes and a breakaway by Ricardo #13 who dribbled around the keeper for an easy shot on goal. The game could have gone either way, but most importantly we had a good time playing with the other club.

Thanks to Moira and her husband from Region 78 who came out and refereed our match.

Friendly Match tonight at Vista Hermosa Park against the Club we practice with every week, Echo Park FC — wish us luck!

by Dan Rosenheck

BUENOS AIRES — “Soccer has a god. That god is Argentine, and his name is Diego Armando Maradona,” proclaims the Web site of the Church of Maradona, an online fan club of Argentina’s unrivaled athletic icon that claims some 20,000 members.

But this month, Diego Maradona, the country’s 48-year-old sporting titan, will try his hand at an all-too-earthly task: coaching Argentina’s men’s national soccer team, which has failed to reach the semifinals of the World Cup since “El Diego” himself starred for it in 1986 and 1990.

After retiring 11 years ago, Maradona has remained in the spotlight primarily as the country’s leading real-life soap opera star, waging a series of well-publicized battles with drugs, obesity, the news media and past lovers. Now, the hopes and dreams of 40 million soccer-mad Argentines will rest on the shoulders — much-slimmed after a stomach-stapling operation in 2005 — of a man who, in the words of the local newspaper columnist Horacio Pagani, will be “the least prepared manager in the history of international soccer.”

Given Argentina’s string of disappointing World Cup performances, the country certainly seems as if it could use a supernatural savior. The team was sent home by Romania in the round of 16 in 1994, by the Netherlands in the quarterfinals in 1998, and by Germany in the quarterfinals in 2006. In 2002, Argentina failed to qualify for the knockout stage.

But handing Maradona the reins represents a profound, if not reckless, leap of faith. His managing résumé is thin and checkered. In 1994 and 1995, he piloted two Argentine club teams to just three wins in 23 games, and he was once forced to call the shots from the stands because a suspension for ephedrine use prevented him from sitting on the bench. Moreover, his personal track record hardly suggests he is fit to keep a 23-man team playing in lockstep. As recently as March 2007, rumors of his death circulated wildly while he was hospitalized for alcohol-related hepatitis.

The controversial selection became official Tuesday, when the executive committee of Argentina’s national soccer federation met. But that group serves as little more than a rubber stamp for the decisions of the organization’s president, Julio Grondona, and his pick of Maradona is considered a fait accompli.

Grondona, who also serves as a vice president of FIFA, the game’s international governing body, is widely thought to run the national sport as a personal fief. During his 29 years in office, he has been accused of using his influence over referees, the news media, and the distribution of revenues to guarantee obedience from the club presidents who elect him — and to advance his business interests. The courts have ordered some 50 searches of his offices during his presidency, but few formal proceedings have ever been filed against him, and he has never been found guilty of a crime.

The leading candidate for the coaching job, which became available after Alfio Basile resigned in October, was Carlos Bianchi. As the manager of Boca Juniors — Argentina’s most popular club, for whom Maradona played from 1981 to 1982 and from 1995 to 1997 — Bianchi won four domestic titles, three continental titles and two intercontinental titles. But his poor relationship with Grondona appears to have disqualified him for the post.

Sergio Batista, who coached Argentina’s under-23 team to the Olympic gold medal in Beijing, was also passed over.

Maradona has, predictably, brushed off concerns about his readiness, noting that he spent two decades on the national team.

“Soccer hasn’t changed,” he told reporters in Argentina. “I don’t think anything will surprise me.”

The choice of Maradona is sure to increase the international profile of the Argentine team, which will probably increase its revenues. Tickets for his first match in charge, on Nov. 19 against Scotland in Glasgow, have sold briskly.

Public opinion, while divided, seems to lean against the choice: an Internet poll conducted by Clarín, Argentina’s largest newspaper, found that 74 percent of nearly 50,000 voters were opposed. Purists were particularly appalled, arguing that Maradona’s indubitable star power was no substitute for the years on the bench accumulated by other candidates, and that his postretirement antics put the country’s image at risk.

“He was a great player, but nothing more,” said Oscar Pereira, a union employee in the stands at a local league game on Friday night.

“We need someone more serious. You see him running around with Hugo Chávez talking about Che Guevara.”

Moreover, accusations of cronyism against Grondona are flying more freely than ever. “Whatever money they make off Maradona, Grondona and his friends will keep it for themselves,” said Raúl Gámez, a former president of the club Vélez Sársfield and one of Grondona’s most outspoken critics.

But Maradona’s stature among Argentines still leaves many believing he deserves a shot — or at the very least, that his all-too-public campaign for the position forced Grondona’s hand.

“We’ve had a lot of experienced managers, and they haven’t always done well,” said Alejandro Fabbri, a broadcaster for the TyC Sports network. “If Maradona wanted the job, he should get it.

“He’s the greatest Argentine player ever. At least they won’t be able to say he never got the chance.”

To compensate for Maradona’s lack of training, Grondona has also appointed a team of veteran tacticians to support Maradona, led by Carlos Bilardo, who managed Maradona on Argentina’s 1986 World Cup championship team. With capable assistants, Maradona’s devotees say, he will be able to focus on providing the players with his special brand of leadership and inspiration.

“He’s the biggest name there is,” said Pereira’s son, Nahuel, who accompanied him to the game. “He’ll pass on some of his magic to them.”

While Argentines disagree over the merits of the decision, they share a concern for Maradona’s well-being in his new role — perhaps a concern greater than their worries about the direction of the team as a whole. Will Maradona the deity survive Maradona the manager?

“I told him he was too big for this job,” Pagani said. “Right now, everyone loves him. Once he starts making decisions for the team, he’ll be held to account. He’s risking his legend. But he said that he wanted to do it.”

Thanks Ryan

From the then-exotic Tango to the lethal Mouldmaster and the pigs bladders of yore, a review of six essential makes of ball.

Thanks Jennifer

Argentina vs West Germany in the World Cup Final, Mexico 1986.